next on c-span, news maker with kent senator rand paul followed by battleground state pennsylvania. later heidi ewing on her film. .....

whoever made that decision was a very unwise decision to put a ambassador in probably the most dangerous country on earth or one of the most dangerous countries on earth and have no marines there to protect them. whoever made that decision should be fired and immediately. the president says the buck stops with him. well, the buck stops with him, he or hillary clinton, they need to make a decision and a swift one as to who decided not to protect the ambassador in the first place. not just sending troops in, but in the first place, why were they not having any protection of any kind of consequence. >> and one of the other questions is then who told the u.s. ambassador to the u.n., susan rice, when she went on the

five shows, as far as the video tape, that was at least at that point believed to be the reason for this spontaneous demonstration, who do you think told her and press secretary jay carney and others to basically talk about it as the video tape being responsible for the demonstrations? >> you know, i don't know and that's really what's made it worse for the administration, is that because this went on for about two weeks, now i think they sort of have been campaign fokabitzingover something that t necessary my important, whether it was terrorism or not terrorism, but it is pretty clear for two weeks, they were saying it was primarily balls of this movie, whether it was terrorism or not. they spent money apologizing to the people of pakistan as if somehow the american government oral the american people had something to do with this crazy movie. i think all of that was bad policy, bad form and it's why this policy goes on and on, but still i get back to the primary question, why was no one guarding the ambassador.

why did they remove the 16-person security team in august, that had specifically requested to stay? boy, i would hate to be the person who is sitting there today, who made the decision, when it was requested, that a security team stay in one of the most dangerous countries in the world, would you like to be the bureaucrat in the state department who shade oh, no, we don't have the money, you need to come home? the same with a dc-3, and what i've been pounding home is, four days after that dc-3 was removed in may of 2012, they approved $100,000 to green up the embassy in vienna, to spend some money on electrical charging station for electric cars that cost the taxpayer $250,000 per car in subsidies. this is a political statement they were making at the vienna embassy. they want to show off for the europeans to say, hey, we're as european as you are, but yet we don't strengthen medicare money to provide for the basic security of an embassy. that to me is it inexcusable and

whoever made those decisions, they already know that, you don't need a congressional investigation, whoever made those decisions ought to be fired. >> let me turn to susan, chief congressional correspondent for the washington examiner. >> senator, as you know, the house held a hearing about this very matter a few weeks ago and there were lots of questions answer he had, some of them, you were just talking about, about who said no to the extra security forces. there were many questions answered, but there were many left unanswered and there's also an internal investigation going on right now in the state department where they're supposedly looking for reasons behind all this. can you tell us a little bit about what going forward congress can really do to answer some of these questions, you know, many people in the public want the answers to, is there anything you can do to force the administration to talk more about this, beyond just, you know, coming on the air and talking about it and asking the questions yourself? >> you know, i think there can be investigations. people can be subpoenaed, emails can be subpoenaed, you can do

all that, but ultimately, this is going to be a decision that the voters make in november on leadership and if the voters think that it's leadership to spend money on a global warming initiative, greening up embassies in europe, and not spend any money or not spend an adequate amount of money on security in libya, that to me is inexcusable and if i think people know about that, i think we'll choose new leadership. if we don't choose new leadership, we still should investigate it. i don't think this is a political question. i think this really is one of responsibility. i've been one who said for overa decade, after 9-11, why was no one fired? it still apollos me that hand f.b.i. agent in minnesota sent 70 letters to his superiors saying we need to investigate this moussau. the person who made the decision about the plane and the security detail and no marines in libya, maybe they made hand honest

mistake, but that person needs to no longer be in a position to make those decisions. they need to be gone immediately, and i guarantee the president knows who that person is. you think there's any chance they don't know who turned down the plane, the security force, and the marines? somebody knows that already. >> do your feel like this should go as high as the secretary of state and that she should lose her job for this or do you feel like it's going to be more of the lower level folks, the undersects and the deputies who will end up taking a fall for this? >> you know, someone needs to accept responsibility. sometimes though when you run a corporation, you may be the greatest c.e.o. in the world, but if your corporation goes bankrupt, you lose your job. you may be the smartest manager in major league baseball and if your lose 100 games, you're going to lose your job, so ultimately responsibility does gravitate to those who are on top, because they have to pick the right managers, but someone needs to take responsibility for this, but also for the future.

someone needs to take responsibility to we don't have the same person in charge of security for embassies making the same decision. i read something the other day that sometimes it takes five years to figure out how to get marines to protect an embassy. five years. i thought government was bad, but five years to decide on whether or not how many marines or whether or not we're going to have marines. libya, i mean, other than iraq or afghanistan or pakistan, libya has probably got to be one of the most dangerous places in the world. it's just come out of a war, it's barely a country and we have the ambassador traveling around with no armed marines? i mean, it on the face of it is it one of the worths decisions i've ever heard of. >> neil, congressional reporter for "roll call." >> i want to shift just slightly still however somewhat on the subject of libya. your political action committee is running campaign ads against democrats who have supported funding for libya as well as pakistan and egypt.

i was -- you've gotten criticism from fellow republicans, including senator lindsay graham and senator john mccain on that sort of effort that you've launched, to speak a little bit about how you intend to move the party and if you think you're going to have the momentum going forward. >> i think if you ask people, i've told people, i think i can go to the kentucky democrat convention, stand in front of all democrats, and tell them, you know what? we don't have enough money to be sending money to pakistan and egypt and libya, countries that are more mobs or burning our flag, attacking our embassy. we've got problems at home. in my state, we have two bridges that are $2 billion projects, louisville and in northern kentucky. this is it fact. i think -- this is infrastructure. i think i can get 90% of democrats to agree with me. don't extent money overseas when we have problems at home that we can't take care of. we've wanted these bridges to be reand replaced for 20 years and

yet we have money to send overseas and if you look and follow the trail of the money, you find that so much of it is it stolen. look at mubarak. mubarak in egypt was a reliable ally, who stole us blind. he might have -- we gave him 60 billion over about 30 years, his family is worth 10 to 15 billion and most people think it came directly out of the pocket of the american taxpayer. this happened throughout. and then people say, well, we need that foreign aid because we convinced people to like us. well, you know what mubarak did with the foreign aid? he bought teri garr made in pennsylvania and he sprayed and hosed down his people when they tried to gather to protest against him. so i think far from foreign aid buying us legitimacy in these countries, it often offends the people who hate the dictators, who we give money to. but yeah, this is going to change, because the vast majority of people don't agree with it, and i'm a minority in the senate on this position, but i gun when you talk to the

populace and this is one of the reasons when we put these ads out there, people will be hopping mad when they see we're still burning their flag and sending money to their country. >> would your political action committee be opening to supporting primary challenges against republicans who are against us in the future, for example, senator graham is up for rear election in 2014. >> you know, i don't foresee getting involved in primaries against incumbent republicans, but i would stay in incumbent republicans are campaigning for democrat senators this time around, they may have their own problem in their primary without me being involved, because i don't thinking in a general election that republican voters in a primary, you know, the hard core part of our party are going to be real happy about anybody who's campaigning for someone of the opposite party in a general election. >> let's turn to the current campaign. susan? >> so you've been out stumping for mitt romney. can you talk a little bit about

how that's going. i know you've been in ohio, ohio, a state that's pivotal for the upcoming election, and many people talk about it as the state that may deicide the election. it looks -- some people say obama kind of has the lead there, the job picture is it improving there, which helps him out. how do you think things are going there for governor romney and do you really think it's possible that he could actually win ohio? >> yeah. i made two trips to ohio and i'll go back in a few days to ohio again. i've been up in new hampshire. in 2010, there was an incredible shift in the country from 2008 to 2010. this tea party wave, but also this wave of taking over state house, state senate, state legislatures, new hampshire, there was a huge wave. they've got almost -- i think they've got two-thirds of the senate and nearly two 3rd of the house are republican now. you have that same wave in ohio. rob portman wins by 18 points. kay sick wins by a couple of

points, but they take over state house, state senate, they win 10 of 18 congressional seats. i think when you're projecting things, you don't go from 2008 to 2010 and think we're going back to 2008 before we go -- we get to 2012. i think all of the polling is underestimated where we're going to be. my prediction, and of course, i could be wrong, but my prediction is that this is going to be 1980. this is going to be an election that was projected to be very close, we have all these battleground states, but in the end, romney is it going to pull away and he's going to win which a bigger percentage nih 1 predicts, because i think the polling is modeling on 2008 and not really factoring in an enormous wave of 2010 and i think we're still headed in that same direction. >> senator, how do you reconcile some of the policy positions that you have that are very different from governor romney,

particular hi when it pertains -- particularly when it pertains to foreign affairs and being out on the campaign trail for him. i know your father has not been unsupportive in the same way that you have. >> you know, i think we try to choose who we think is best as republicans in the primary and obviously, i thought my dad was the best candidate and still do. but then i think, the difference between who we nominate and who the democrats nominate, is pretty significant. when you look at the economic issues in particular, i think president obama really thinks that hire a few more government workers and everything will be ok, whereas we understand you have to grow the private sector. but on foreign policy, you're right, i will not halls agree with the republican nominee and my job will be i hope to keep us out of additional wars, i hope to help, be part of the solution and bring our troops home from afghanistan, but you know, during the republican primary debate, governor romney said he was ready to come home from afghanistan. i know there's some quibbling

here and there on timeline, but to tell you the truth, i don't think there's much daylight between governor romney and president obama on the war. the real difference is on the economy. they're night and day on the economy and not that far apart from coming home from afghanistan. i will try to keep us out of war in syria, keep us out of preemptive war around the world and i will fight for these things and hopefully, i'll be able to convince governor romney campaignfully to come to my direction. within the republican senate caucus, you know, there's probably 10 of us now who are reticent to give the president unlimited authority for war. it doesn't sound like many, but it's 10 more than there used to be, i think, who believes that congress declares war, not the president, and there are probably a few democrats who believe that too, and so, i think there is actually a bipartisan sort of libertarian, but more constitutional caucus on war issues and i've been working hard with many on the other side, i worked with

senator wyden, senator judall on issues of war to make it less likely that we get involved in another war. >> senator paul, your part father on his network, many of his supporters think you might run for president in 2016. any interest in seeking higher office? >> a lot of that depends on what happens next tuesday. i want to be involved in the national debate. i want to transform the republican party into a marty that's competitive in hall 50 states. i think particularly the west coast and new england, we've written who have and we give up probably, what, 150 electoral votes to begin with. that's why it always comes down, do we have to win florida and do we have to win ohio? i'd rather be competitive in california, oregon, and washington and all of new england, and i think one way to be competitive is to have a less aggressive foreign policy that doesn't always think war is the answer, and to be a little bit

more of a tolerant party when it comes to people who don't always agree with us on every issue. and still to be a fiscally conservative party that believes in balancing the budget. i think if you ran primarily on the message of balancing the budget and that was a primary message, even in california, i think there are even democrats in california that would vote for you if they knew that your primary purpose and what you wanted to control government for was to control out of control deficit spending. >> so you'd leave that window open for 2016? >> you know, nobody knows what happens a week from tuesday and we'll see what happens a week from tuesday, but my primary purpose now is i have gone around the country campaigning for governor romney, and i'm hoping that governor romney wins is a week from tuesday. >> susan? >> senator, another important component next tuesday is obviously the senate and you need four seats to take control, for republicans to take control, and it looked as though things were going in favor of the

republicans for a while recall but there are a couple of races where things are not going so well due to some controversial statements that the tea party republican candidates have made and some people are arguing now that this is another instance where the tea party is it dragging down the republicans' efforts to take over the senate. we have todd aiken in missouri, recently who made some statements that were controversial and richard murdoch just now in indiana. both of those seats, were looking more in favor of republicans and now less so. can you talk about that and whether you think the tea party has struggled to get republicans elected moving forward and are they a drag on the ticket as some people are saying? >> you know, those who think the tea party is a drag on the ticket really aren't paying attention at all. if you look around the united states in 2010, look at all the new state houses that were taken over, the new governorships, the new senators. did we win every race? no, we won't win every race this time, but there was a wave

election in 2010 and it was a tea party wave that came and we won an enormous amount of seats in state legislatures and got control of states that we hadn't have control of in a long time and just because we didn't win every race doesn't mean it was a big wave, so no i think the direction is still in favor of people are worried about the debt. they're worried primarily about the debt and that's what the tea party is worried about, and so i think -- i see the wave going on through 2012. i'll be very surprised if we don't pick up more seats in 2012. >> neil? >> senator, what is your guidance or what would be your advice to senate candidates and other candidates for office who come out of the tea party when it comes to talking about the sort of social issues, abortion and other issues that have sort of gotten some of the candidates in trouble this cycle? >> well, i think the points is that we're divided as a country. you know, we're almost evenly

divided probably on the issue of abortion around i don't think the law is changing any time soon. i think the way you have to change things is you have to change the hearts and minds of the population and we're a ways away from that, so when we get bogged down in talking about exceptions and bizarre sort of exceptions to rules, i think at that point, we're getting away from really what the primary thing that's going on in our counsel interest that people are worried about and that's 23 million people out of work, $6 trillion in new debt, and so i primarily talk only about the economic issues, even though i am socially conservative, but i talk primarily about the economic issues because i think it's what's important to the country, and what unites a lot of us. it doesn't divide us. i think talking about the debt and talking about the budget, talking about unemployment are things that everyone is concerned about and everybody really ought to be on the staple side of those issues. >> let me go back to susan's comment about the races that you're supporting, including

indiana and missouri, specifically with the ads on the air for todd aiken. can he win the missouri senate race? >> i think he can. it will be an enormous upset and it will shock the heck out of people if he does win. it's very close. missouri supported 70% in a referendum against obama care. to my knowledge, i don't think the president is campaigning there. i think it's a foregone conclusion, romney is it going to win the state. i don't think many people are listing it as a battleground state this year, so missouri has become more conservative and more republican, and so i think he really has a chance. >> susan? >> other than indiana, are both states trending republican, but again, those two senate candidates now are in trouble. can you tell me, just yes or no, if you believe the republicans will be able to take over the majority, will they win enough seats and next week take the majority? >> yes or no? 50%, you know, i can't tell you for sure.

i think there's several we're going to pick up, but there may be a few that we don't hold as well, so we'll have to see which direction we go, but it's -- you know, it's going to be a real big year if we win the senate, i think. >> speaking to that a little bit, i noticed you're on message there with senator mcconnell on staying it's a 50-50 chance, because that's the same thing he says all the time. how will you work with your -- >> maybe that's -- >> how will you work with your senior senator, if he's the majority leader and there are issues on which the two of you disagree? >> i was going to say, maybe the reason that i hear the 50-50 comments, because i'll on the road with him quite a bit and do quite a bit of town halls with him but i do agree with him on this issue. we don't agree on every issue, but i think he's been really good at keeping the republicans together on the biggest issue of the last few years, which has been obama care,, filing the lawsuit, getting the lawsuit started, so he's done a good job

of keeping republicans together and you know, if we have differences, we try to keep it together, you know, we try to keep that private. >> so you would support him for his reelection? >> yes. >> susan? >> that's -- it's a big change, because remember that he was supporting your opponent during the republican primary. can you talk a little bit about your relationship with him and how it's changed, he's a very important figure in the senate and will be even more so in january, if he becomes the majority leader. however, he's also been really criticized by people on the right who feel like he's not been conservative enough and not done enough to help romney in the early days and they feel like he's not -- has a strong enough back bone as a conservative leader in the senate and he's certainly been on opposite sides with you many times. can you talk about your relationship with him and how it's kind of changed from one where he was trying to actively get someone else to be the primarily candidate to where you guys are now, traveling around

the country together campaigning? >> >> well i think what you find, people particularly wanting to find candidates, the candidates has to agree on this list of issues and if they don't, they're not perfect and the only perfect candidate is whether you run for office, then you never disagree with yourself, but of the thing is we'll always have some disagreements monday republicans but on the vast majority of issues of debt an overspending and the primary issues that affect the country, i think we're on the same page and i don't think you're hearing as much of that quibbling within the senate caucus. i haven't really heard that, and i think the 1 thing senator mcconnell has been able to do is hear both sides, you know, he has a caucus that ranges from, you know, folks like myself and demint and lee on one side to some in new england who aren't as conservative, so he has a lot to handle to try to keep 47 strong-willed people on the same page, but i think he's done a good job at that.

>> senator, working with when mcconnell works with senator reid presumably and speaker boehner hand others presumably on the lame duck, trying to come up with some sort of deal to avert the fiscal cliff, are there any things that could be in that package that would cause you to strenuously object and potentially sort of delay the measure's consideration in the senate that you have bright minds on? >> well, you know, i've always said that even though i didn't vote for the sequester, the idea of reducing spending is primary, an we need to, even military spending as well. so the only way i would vote to get rid of that is if there's significant real cuts elsewhere. and a lot of these people, i'm not staying who these people are, but a lot of these people would like to sort of get rid of the military sequester and say oh, we'll cut things over a 10 or 20 year period somewhere else. and i think that if that happens, i wouldn't be able to support that and the really what

you have to do is you have to acknowledge military spending has doubled over the last 10 years, and we should reduce the top line some, and that will force the military to find the savings. it doesn't tell them exactly where the savings have to come from, but for goodness stakes, we've never audited the pentagon. we need to audit the pentagon. we do need to find savings in military spending and to me, it's the ultimate compromise. conservatives like myself who believe that the military and defenses are our most important functions in washington need to say that not every dollar hash wisely spent or is sacred, and then also the same with liberals. liberals need to stay that not every dollar spent in domestic welfare has been well spent and both sides should come together in both areas of the government and budget need to be reduced. >> senator, can you talk a little brit about the so-called fiscal cliff that is looming tend of december? can you talk a little bit about what you think should happen? we have tax cuts that are about to expire, many of them, you

know, and we also have, like you were just talking about, the trillion dollar sequestration cuts that will be across the board in both domestic and military spending, hall of these things are happening by the end of the year. what do you think congress should do, do you feel like they should leave everything out of this so we can start reducing our deficit, or do you have any ideas that congress should put in place that you will put forward when you guys go back in next week, two weeks from now? >> yeah. i think the best way to talk about the tax rates are, they're what we've had for 10 years, and businesses have made their plans predicated on these tax rates. i don't think we should increase the tax rates on anybody. to me, i don't really care whether you're rich or you're middle class or poor, we shouldn't divide up people. we should distribution centers stride things in to two sectors, previous sector, public section nestor. i don't want to grow the public sector. i want to grow the private sector, so that means leaving as much money in the private sector

as possible. i don't want to tax anybody any more to take any more money out of the private sector. why? because that's where jobs are created. we've tried this before this vilification of the rich. we tried that one time having a special surtax on yachts. it's the same with having a surtax on millionaires or anything else. the people who lost their jobs when we had a surtax on yachts were men and women making $50,000 around $60,000 a year making the yachts. what happens is it doesn't work. it's hard to punish one set of people. it's also not industry american to say i want to go after those successful people. it also ignores the facts, the rich people pay all the taxes in our country. top 1% pay 40% of the income tax. the top 5%, most making $200,000 and above, pay 70% of the income tax. and if you make $75,000 and above, you pay 96% of the income tax. we already have a progressive tax code. and i don't think we need to make it more progressive.

>> senator paul, in our remaining minute, i want to go back to your earlier point about the fiscal cliff and what happens after the election. for you personally, where will you compromise in what is likely to be a divided congress, regardless of who wins the white house? >> i think the compromise is for conservatives to acknowledge that not every dollar spent on military is wisely spent or sacred. that's the compromise for conservatives. compromise for liberals is that not every dollar in entitlements or welfare is it well spent and they're going to have to compromise. but the compromise is to reduce spending in both. people think we don't compromise in washington. we actually do. we compromise in the reverse direction. the liberals will say, oh, we'll let you raise military and the conservatives will say, oh, we'll let you raise entitlement spending. they both have been going up for the last half a century. we need the reverse compromise. we don't need more revenue up there, we've got $2.2 trillion coming in. let's just spend what comes in, and reduce the spending.

>> senator rand paul joining us from bowling green, kentucky, thank you very much for being with us on c-span's newsmakers program. neil, let me turn to you. what did you learn? >> well, i think we learned quite a bit about where senator paul differs from the republican party. these are things that we sort of knew but maybe viewers have not been entirely aware, that senator paul has this distinction from most of the republicans in the senate on the foreign policy issues, but that he seems to think he has the momentum going forward and he's kind of playing a longer game when it comes to how these things work. >> i want to ask but a piece that's in this morning's paper that you wrote, the president's focus on big bird, binders and bay nets may back fire. what's your look at the larger issue as the campaign is nine days away. >> when you answer your phone and someone says who are you going to vote for, mitt r